Is the market of email adverts (spams) growing in MRU?

Unless you keep your email address really secret, you have surely received spam emails during your life… btw, who doesn’t get spam mails? But since quite a long time, Mauritius is getting its own spam advertising companies which keep mailing you about products and services, which you don’t give a damn for!

One of them has been operating in the island since months or years and very recently, I read that another company joined into the business which many of us hate.

And you know what? Both of the companies referred in this post do mention the law that allows them to send those commercial emails!

Yes, there is a law (The CAN-SPAM Act) which allows them to send those mails as long as they

Don’t use false or misleading header information

Don’t use deceptive subject lines.

Identify the message as an ad.

Tell recipients where you’re located

Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you

Honor opt-out requests promptly

In fact, this activity is referred as “Sending Targeted Mail – Not Spam”.

How they get your email address? This remains a complete mystery…

Let me tell you a small story which took place a few weeks ago.

“You have got a new mail!”

I opened my inbox and found out that Xkcom has sent me an advert email. I was really fed up deleting its mail since some time. Even marked as spam, it happened to get into the inbox for some reasons!

I clicked on the link to unsubscribe, you know, the thing which never worked! I wonder why it is still there!

And some time back, I even sent him a mail to his add Xkcomm@intnet.mu to ask him to stop sending his BS mails, in vain.

So, this time, I decided to call him up! Yes, I called him up and told him what I think about his system, especially those unsubscribe things which do not work!

He told me that I need to send him a mail at Xkcom@xyz.com not the one mentioned in the mail (Xkcomm@xyz.com) since that oneÂ is the mail address for his server! pff!

Anyway, it still did not work for this company but however I stopped receiving targeted mails from the other company when I unsubscribed myself!

Fortunately, all of them now go directly to spam!

Now, what about you? Are you in their targeted lists and do you really bother about reading those mails?

Having worked in email marketing for a long time I understand the deceptive manner in which these are trying to turn the CAN-SPAM act to their advantage but this really IS spam. On the other hand I have an answer (among others) for this:

How they get your email address? This remains a complete mysteryâ€¦

One of the major sources of email address capturing from sellers is simple: catch all the “FWD to a friend” email. Why? When people send all those forwarded emails out, they do not clean the mails, so you literally get hundreds of email addresses out of a dozen forwarded emails.

Keep on forwarding people…

Mike

I use the Firetrust Mailwasher-Pro to filter spam etc. It does a good job, worth the money and saves a lot of rubbish coming into your mailbox.

Jaz

the spam MUS company are not cheap. Rs 5000 for 3 day of spamming.
they claim they have hundred of thousand of email addresses and they also claim that at least 50k people will read your advert ; )

http://www.studenteam.co.cc Nayar

I use gmail. I never get spams(maybe one or two per year).
Their spam filter is very good

http://www.nussaibah.com Nussaibah

Funny enough, I have never got these emails =P Or maybe I have, but they must be in my junk which I don’t even bother checking. I love gmail <3

http://knight-nirvan.iblogger.org/ Nirvanknight

Now I get more spam comments than Spam e-mail especially the SCAM …. Miss Alena of Russia ! Browseabout it and you’ll see……. fouffffff

http://www.noulakaz.net/ Avinash Meetoo

I am fed up with spam too… I blogged on that in May 2006 and not a lot has changed since. So stupid!

http://www.tushal.net Tushal

Spammers should be shot to death..xD

http://www.sjdvda.com sjdvda

They get your address because some people are just too stupid to use the “CC” field when sending chain mails.

A quick intro

As a computer geek, senior developer and amateur photographer, I love sharing personal things from my life but I also actively write about about events, activities, news and anything hot happening in the country. Keep tuned to the blog!